- What is Cottage School Life?
- Cottage School Life encompasses our website, Facebook, and Instagram sites that are our way of sharing about all the fun we have in cottage school. We want to inspire you to embrace the joy of learning with your children and other families.
- What is a cottage school?
- It’s kind of like a one room schoolhouse. The idea is to create a space for teaching our children in a smaller setting than a larger homeschool co-op but not just by ourselves in our home with only our children. It’s a way to encourage friendship between us homeschooling moms and our kids. It’s also a great way to help each other with the responsibility of teaching. You can read more about the benefits of cottage school in the post from Christie.
- What inspired you to start a cottage school?
- We were all looking for a way to have a few co-op classes with other homeschoolers, but we couldn’t find anything that fit just right, so we came up with our own cottage school.
- What do you do at cottage school?
- We have time for our kids to share presentations, sing together, learn how to resolve conflict and take turns, and build friendships through playing together. Our formal classes have included English composition, science, art, and geography.
- How often do you meet together?
- Our cottage school meets 24 weeks of the year–12 in the fall and 12 in the spring.
- Where and when do you meet?
- Jenny hosts our cottage school. Her house has two good meeting spaces for classes. We meet once a week for about 4 hours (3 classes and lunch/play).
- How do you choose a curriculum for cottage school?
- We pick curriculum partly from having experience with it before creating cottage school and partly through trial and error. You can read more about choosing curriculum on our post from Amelia.
- Do you all use the same curriculum at home?
- The short answer is no! To read more about some of the different things we do at home – check out our post on curriculum we have used!
- What’s a good number of kids/families for cottage school?
- That depends! Everyone’s situation is different. We have 16 kids between all four families, and we feel like that’s capacity for us.
- How do you make cottage school be an enhancement and not a drain on what you are learning the rest of the week?
- The quick answer is eliminate busy work! If you can organize your own cottage school, you can make it fit your own needs. We’d love to help you think through beginning your own cottage school, so see if our consultation option would be a help to you.
- Is it affordable to organize a cottage school?
- Yes! When comparing a cottage school to tuition and fees for other large homeschool co-ops, cottage school can be quite affordable. Check out our post about what we spend for cottage school.
- How can I start a cottage school with my friends?
- We are glad you asked! If you think forming your own cottage school is for you, we’d love for you to stay tuned as we will have a downloadable e-handbook available soon, and for further help now, check out consultation service!